In the previous post I said I’d just started a book called Writing as a Sacred Path, by Jill Jepson. I’m still only a few pages into the book, but I wanted to quote a passage here, that so resonated with me because Ms. Jepson put into words exactly how I feel about the birth of stories.
‘Stories are gifts. The Universe offers them, not merely to us as individual writers, but to the world. Writers are the ones charged with the work of giving stories form and passing them on to others. To receive and be open to stories, to receive them, to treat them with care and respect, and to offer them to the world is not merely our work, but our sacred responsibility.’
To receive a story, care for it, nurture it into full form, and treat it with respect. That’s the calling I was talking about earlier.
Lisa Stowe - The Story River Blog 
I heaved such a sigh when I read this. I so agree with her quote and yours.
I’d just taken a break from writing to read this. This quote describes how I feel about it and all the others. I try so hard to do them justice. No wonder it hurts so much when I fail.
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You might want to see if your library has the book. I’m just starting it, like I mentioned, but this piece I quoted will make me read the rest, just from that alone. I have a feeling we were heaving sighs together! I don’t think we fail though, and I know you don’t. I think we actually just don’t live up to the expectation we set for ourselves. I know the stories floating around me are happy simply to be told, and don’t care how I tell them. If I talk about them before they are written down, they seem to feel they’ve been told, and go away, and I never write them down. Same if I outline. So we do them justice in their eyes (if those stories have eyes!) but don’t do them justice in our own. As we’ve said before, we’re our own worst critics, right?
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